encyclopediafandomcom-20200222-history
Billie Holiday
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | origin = Harlem, New York City, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. | instrument = Voice | genre = | occupation = Singer | years_active = 1933–59 | label = | associated_acts = | website = }} Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), better known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems. Though she was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Holiday's bad health, coupled with a string of abusive relationships and ongoing drug and alcohol abuse, caused her voice to wither. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction, owing to her damaged voice, but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959. She won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972. She is the primary character in the play (later made into a film) Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; the role was originated by Reenie Upchurch in 1986, and was played by Audra McDonald on Broadway and in the film. In 2017 Holiday was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. Life and career 1915–29: Childhood Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia aged 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister Eva Miller for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist.Dufour, American National Biography Online Growing up in Baltimore, Holiday had a difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life.Nicholson, pp. 18–23. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese." Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years. Eleanora was left with Martha Miller again while her mother took more transportation jobs.Nicholson, pp. 21–22. She frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. She had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. By the age of 11, Holiday had dropped out of school.Nicholson, pp. 22–24. On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case.Nicholson, p. 25. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly twelve. She found a job running errands in a brothel,Nicholson, p. 27. and she scrubbed marble steps and kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.Nicholson, p. 31. By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem. Their landlady was a sharply-dressed woman named Florence Williams, who ran a brothel at 151 West 140th Street. Holiday's mother became a prostitute, and within a matter of days of arriving in New York, Holiday, not yet 14, also became a prostitute at $5 a client.Nicholson, p. 32. The house was raided on May 2, 1929, and Holiday and her mother were sent to prison. After spending time in a workhouse, her mother was released in July, and Holiday was released in October. References Category:Billie Holiday Category:1915 births Category:1959 deaths Category:20th-century American singers Category:African-American Catholics Category:African-American female singer-songwriters Category:American buskers Category:American contraltos Category:American female jazz singers Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:Classic female blues singers Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Deaths from cirrhosis Category:Decca Records artists Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Musicians from Baltimore, Maryland Category:Musicians from Philadelphia, Pennsylvani Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Singers from Pennsylvania Category:Swing singers Category:Torch singers Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vocalion Records artists